Taken or gay
by g-na-1358
Summary: "Why do all the good guys have to be either taken or gay?" "You forgot taken gays." You're not helping me here, Petra. You're not helping. Or the one time I practically fell in love at first sight with a guy who turned out to be my boss' boss' boss' boss' husband. Go, me. (Modern AU; translated into spanish: Con novia o gay by Cuchufleta PL)


**A/N:** This is pretty much just an Eren Appreciation Fic and not much else. You have been warned.

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I was thanking every god I could think off my shift was going to finish in just a few minutes. Don't get me wrong now; I didn't hate, or even dislike, my job but these 8 hours were just about _enough_. I felt like banging my head on the table and possibly breaking the keyboard in the process in frustration. I would have done it, too, if in that exact moment the door didn't open and my over the years perfectly honed reflexes didn't kick in in the form of straightened back and a forced smile.

However, as soon as I noticed who the person visiting the company I was sitting behind the reception desk for was, I froze.

He was so _gorgeous_! Tall and tan and athletic and well dressed and beautiful and everything I ever wanted in a man. And then he smiled. God, that smile was to kill for. I was so gone.

"Good afternoon, sir. How can we help you?" I thanked god I didn't stumble over my words. Damn, why did he have to come in just as I was finishing up? I'd been sitting here the whole day; it had been ages since my lunch break. I had to look terrible; I would bet my hair was a mess, my make-up all smudged…

"Hello." God, that _smile_. "I was wandering if you could tell me whether Mr. Ackerman was close to leaving for the day?"

Mr. Ackerman? As in the best manager award Ackerman? The Levi 'I hate you and your pet fish' Ackerman? What did this diamond of a man need with that grouch?

But was he close to leaving? He was here before me, so… maybe? "I'm afraid so but I can't be sure. However, my colleague was speaking with him just a minute ago so she might know. If you give me a minute, I'll check with her."

"If you were so kind."

For you, anything, precious specimen.

I flashed him a smile instead of voicing my inner thoughts before heading for the back room, where my supervisor was doing her supervisor stuff – or something. "Petra?"

The ginger haired woman raised her head with a questioning look. "What is it?"

"Someone's here, asking if Mr. Ackerman has finished already or not? You were talking with him a while ago, right?"

A confused look passed Petra's face. "Who is it? He wasn't supposed to have any meetings today anymore."

"I don't know; he didn't introduce himself, yet." And what a shame that was, I needed a name to label that perfect face with. "But he doesn't look dressed for a meeting."

Petra hummed, deep in thought. "I'll go talk to him. I don't want that workaholic staying here any longer than he has to. Especially not today."

Was something happening today that I had missed?

The ginger sighed, wrote something on one of the papers she had spread across her table and reluctantly rose from her seat to meet the handsome stranger.

I followed closely after my boss, eager to learn any little detail about my new-found crush. I almost ended up bumping into her petite form as she stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she passed the doorway.

There were two second of silence before Petra burst out laughing.

Weird.

But it got the visitor's attention from staring off into space while he waited and his face split into a wide grin. So dazzling. I was falling more and more in love with each passing second.

"Petra, hey! I didn't know you were working today."

"And I didn't know you were coming! For a minute I was scared it was some asshole insisting on a meeting."

Okay. So they knew each other. Okay. I was lost. But at least I now knew his name. Eren. Pretty name for a pretty owner.

"Yeah, it was kind of a last minute decision," the pretty boy – Eren – laughed, scratching his head awkwardly. _Cute_. "Anyway, is Levi about done?"

So it was some personal business? Who'd want to deal with that guy on a personal level?

"Yeah, when I talked to him, they were just finishing up. They should be down any minute."

I figured I probably shouldn't be just standing there and blatantly listen to their conversation, so I left them to it, sitting at my own work space and pretended to work on something while I carefully, and definitely _not_ obviously, eavesdropped.

However, I didn't learn much more. Their whole chatter pretty much consisted of Petra complaining about the visitors (to which I felt the urge to add my own two cents) and her husband (who was a complete train-wreck of a man, if you asked me – but who was I to talk, being single as hell as I was) and Eren nodding along and laughing, sometimes adding something himself and weirdly often making remarks like "Yeah, Levi mentioned this guy, too," and "Levi once said," or "That reminds me of when Levi." Just how often did he hang out with the guy?

They talked like this for good five minutes before the elevator dinged, announcing its arrival.

All heads turned in that direction as the door slowly opened, revealing The Big Three of the company: the president, Erwin Smith, the chief of staff, Hanji Zoe and – a moment of suspense – the manager of the special teams, Levi Ackerman.

Eren raised his hand in a little wave when they noticed him and immediately, Hanji, like the respectable high executive of a big company that she was, squealed excitedly, running to hug the mysterious visitor.

"Eren! I haven't seen you in so long! I missed you! What are you up to tomorrow? We need to catch up! How about lunch? No, better yet, how about a party at mine?"

Eren, though looking kind of taken aback, chuckled a little, seemingly pretty much used to Hanji's randomness, "Hanji, we saw each other just two days ago. And though I'd love a good party, I doubt we'll have much opportunity to party this weekend. Moreover, I doubt many people could make it on such a short notice to call it a proper party."

Petra laughed at that and muttered a low, "You should know better than to underestimate Hanji by now."

"Petra's right. Don't ever underestimate Hanji or she'll start thinking up even crazier ideas and _go through_ with them." Erwin Smith. Also a fine, very fine man; although a bit too intimidating and unreadable.

The two men finally caught up to Hanji, at their leisure pace. As soon as he was within reach, Levi Ackerman grabbed Hanji's collar and yanked her off of Eren. Wow, for such a tiny body, he must have had a lot of strength. Suddenly he's gotten much sexier than he was before. If only he didn't look so angry all the time…

As soon as she realized what happened, Hanji pouted up at Ackerman. (Otherwise she looked unperturbed. She must be disturbingly used to getting ripped off of people.) "Why'd you do that? Were you jealous?" she smirked at him knowingly.

He gave her a leveled stare as if to ask if she was stupid or something, before giving her a tight "Hardly."

Everyone seemed to be trying hard not to laugh at the scene, even though I didn't really understand why.

Eren was the first one to speak, suppressed laughter still evident in his voice. "Come on, Levi, no need to be shy."

He only got a death glare and a "Shut the fuck up, Eren," in return, which for some reason, only made them all actually laugh.

Ackerman only rolled his eyes and turned around to leave.

"Bye, Levi! Enjoy your weekend!" Is it just me or was there a teasing tilt to Petra's goodbye?

Ackerman didn't even turn around, just rising a hand, flashing Petra the middle finger. She only giggled uncontrollably.

"Guess that's our cue to leave as well. Good bye, you two. Have a nice weekend." Ah, Erwin Smith; always such a gentleman. If only it didn't seem like he was plotting something half the time…

"BYE BYE! See you on Monday!"

"Bye, Erwin; Hanji."

"Bye Petra. It was great to see you. We need to catch up soon."

"I loved seeing you, too, Eren. I'll call you next week and we'll see what we can do, okay?"

"Sounds great. Say hi to Auruo for me."

"Of course. Bye Eren."

"Bye. Bye, miss. Hope to see you again."

Ah, so not _everyone_ forgot I was sitting here… Wait; he talked to me. _He TALKED to me!_

"L-likewise!" God, why did I have to stutter? "Good bye, sir. It was nice to meet you." Although I was confused as hell and with a hopeless crush, but whatever…

Eren flashed one last smile at us, making me into a figurative puddle of blushing goo on the floor (how embarrassing), before jogging out the door. And damn if _that_ wasn't a fine sight.

"Okay, I think you can go home for the day… Hey, you don't want to leave? Okay, I suppose _I'll_ go home then."

"Wait, what? NO! I'm sorry, I spaced out; I'll go immediately!" I knew I was flushing bright red, especially when Petra started laughing.

"Haha, don't worry, it was just a joke. But Eren is a very attractive guy isn't he?"

I blushed even brighter before hiding my face in my hands. "Was I that obvious?" I muttered dejectedly.

"Ah, not really? I doubt anyone except me and maybe Hanji noticed."

"Oh, thank god."

"But you know, you should give up while you're ahead." There was a sympathetic undertone to Petra's statement.

I glanced questioningly at the ginger in between my fingers. She was giving me a kind half smile, before she pointedly looked out the entrance door.

I followed the example and looked that way as well; the group of four from before was still there – it looked like they were saying their goodbyes.

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Was I supposed to see something incriminating? Smith was smiling fondly while Hanji was animatedly talking about something – undoubtedly planning that party she mentioned, and Eren looked like he was failing at trying not to laugh. And Ackerman-

Goddamn it.

 _That_ was what I was supposed to see.

Apparently the universe was against me.

Ackerman was standing right next to Eren, hiding his face in the crook of the other's neck, probably complaining about wanting the noisy woman to shut up or something. He had an arm wrapped tightly around Eren's waist. I didn't notice before, but Eren had one of his arms securely around Ackerman in return.

Let me say it again.

 _Goddamn it_.

I banged my head against the table for real this time as Petra chuckled at me.

"I get where you're coming from but you have to admit they're beyond cute."

I decided to kindly ignore Petra. Because they _were_ cute and my broken heart didn't want to admit it just yet. "Why are all the good guys always either taken or gay?" I whined instead.

"You forgot taken gays," Petra smirked down at me.

"You're not funny," I groaned in my misery, unamused.

"Excuse you, I'm hilarious." Petra mock pouted. "No, but seriously, Levi had dibs on that cute butt since our senior year of high school, when he met Eren. Or 'the determined freshman with the pretty eyes.' His words, not mine. It's their wedding anniversary today."

"Oh, great. You mean to say I almost spontaneously asked a married guy out?"

Petra chuckled, shrugging, "Yeah, pretty much."

"I wanna die. But I'm so lonely I might actually die. Like a rabbit."

Petra outright laughed at me. "Don't worry, it can't be that bad." She paused as her pager buzzed. She looked at it but ignored the message, returning to the conversation with a bright smile. "But if you're so desperate, I can try and set you up with someone, what do you say?"

"Really?" there was so much hope in my voice it made me cringe at my own pathetic-ness.

My boss smiled, "Mhm. We can actually start right now. On your way out, you can stop by the vice-president's office and bring him coffee. You can mention something along the lines of how terrible it is that he has to still be here while all the other big-bosses just left, he'll be delighted to hear that."

I groaned, "Let me guess. He just asked for coffee and you can't be bothered to go up there yourself."

Petra stuck her tongue out. "Maybe. But it can't hurt to try, can it?"

"He's the _vice-president!_ I can't just... like... walk in there and start _flirting_ with him!"

Petra just rolled her eyes at that. Did she think flirting with your boss' boss' boss' boss was normal or something?

"Moreover, he's so weird! The first thing he did after I introduced myself was that he _sniffed_ me."

"He does that to everyone," the ginger shrugged. "You can't take it personally; he's just a giant, giant fluffy dog. He's a great guy, once you get to know him. And honestly, you should see him without a shirt on," Petra added dreamily.

I could only roll my eyes. "I'm _still_ not going up there."

And indeed I did end up going up there.

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 **A/N:** (Don't ask me why the receptionists have to bring the coffee. Let's pretend Mike's assisstant is sick or something? ^^;; )

Guuuyys, I'm so happy I managed to write something after so long, you wouldn't believe. Sure, there's still no plot and it's still pretty short and shitty and boring, but it's _something_ and that just makes me really happy right now. (*^▽^*)


End file.
